Approaching a Night at St. Johns

Initiating a Conversation with the Children:

We separated into two small groups for our morning meeting. We began the conversations by reminding the children of our shadows at night home research and remarking on a comment made by Jack made, in a previous "shadows at night" small group, as he was reflecting on the photographs he took and shared:

 “How can we know if there are shadows at night if we never come to school at night?”  -Jack

---

“I found shadows at night, but I can’t really picture them.” - Jack
You made a plan for that. What was your plan? 
“It was to go to school at night. Take the keys from Molly and get inside the school.” - Jack 
What did you think should be inside the school? 
“Darkness.” - Lochie 
What else would be inside the school at night? 
“If we actually want to find out, you would have to stay here all day until night. Then we need to come and have to get inside.” - Jack 
We could come to the school at night. So, what if we came to school at night? 
“It would be like dark, dark, dark everywhere. Like, I can’t see anything.” - Lochie 
“It would be like playing hide-n-seek. I would bring my flashlight” - George 
“I would bring the flashlight on my dad’s phone.” - Nora 
“I would bring my invisibility pen. - Jack
What would it be like at school at night? 
[Nora is finding shadows on the studio floor while we’re talking]
Can we think of a different question? 
“We could do this at day.” - Jack 
“We would put off the lights.” - Reed

​Sylvie: Well I went out at night and saw shadows. 
Lucia: When I turned off my Christmas lights and I went like this there would be no shadows. When I turned on my Christmas lights there was a shadow.
Sylvie: What if we had a sleepover at the school?!
Lucia: Then we have to like bring some of our cozy friends and bring some food from home. 
Sylvie: I already went to school at night. Remember the lantern festival. (I didn’t go inside)
Lucia: But then the teachers have to be inside to let you in.
CC: I want to be at school at night. (Why) Because then we could see the shadows. Because the lights will be off.
Janie: At midnight...
CC: But what if we were going to school at night?
Lucia: What if there was night school?
​Maxon: What if on the school’s birthday, we can turn out all the lights in the tucker room and then we could have lots of flashlights that could show shadows! 
CC: We do have lots of flashlights!
Sylvie: Guess what, I have a very cool flashlight at home.
CC: I want to come to school because then we can chase the shadows. Because outside when it’s really dark we could chase the shadows.

“The real question was ‘is there shadows when it’s dark?’” - Jack [remembering our original research question]
And your suggestion was that we need to come to school at night to know that. So, if we came to school to investigate shadows at night, what would we put in the classroom? 
“We would bring the overhead projector. We would bring all of the stuff that we said we would bring.” - Jack 
What did we say? 
“My flashlight.” - George
“My invisibility pen.” - Jack 
“A lot of flashlights.” - Audrey 
“Well, I’ll get my invisible pen with the light on it. Also, I’ll sneak my dad’s phone too.” - Nora 
“Well, Jack remember when I showed you the book with the invisibility pen?” - Lochie 
{they start talking about the invisibility pens with purple lights]

Have you ever been to school at night? 
“Yes! Remember when there were all filled with lights, and we goed to school?” - Reed
“That’s called the lanterns.” - Jack 
The luminary walk.
“What does luminary mean again?” - Lochie 
Luminary refers to light.
“So, light is like light. Like a light bulb is luminary, so the luminary walk.” - Lochie 
[we chatted about who was there] ...Did you get to come inside the school that night? 
“No.” - Reed 

Melanie and I are thinking about planning a night at school. Would you like to do that? 
[they were SO THRILLED! SO MANY YESES AND SCREAMING - even Jen]​

What if we went to the outdoor classroom at night? What would that be like? 
“So creepy!” - Reed
“We would just bump into things if we don't see them.” - Lochie 
“We would bump into each other.” - Jack 
“If we go outside…it’s not a good idea to go in the playground at night because that’s where the rats live.” - Nora 
If we went into the outdoor classroom, and we looked up at the sky, what would we see? 
“The stars.” - Lochie 
“Stars.” - Jane 
“Planets.” - George
“Shooting star!” - Nora 
So, we might see some cool things. Can we see that right now? 
“NOO!” - all 
“We might see constellations!” - George 
“We might see nothing.” - Jack 
“Even in my bed sometimes, I try to make constellations.” - Nora 

It sounds like we have some things to investigate outside, and some things inside, but what else do we want to know about night? 
“I just remembered that the night sky…the universe…space…and the stars were in the space.” - Lochie 
“Well, are constellations even real?” - Nora 
“I was just about to say that.” - Lochie 

​We need more big questions to do research about. 
​
“When we bring light, it will shone it, and that’s what makes the shadows. If there’s so much light on the ground, we won’t see it. So if we bring the light, we will see the shadows, and that’s shadows at night. If we go out with the light, and turn out the lights, we will see the shadows.” - Lochie 

Do we want to come to school at night? 
“Yes!” - all/most 
Do we agree that we need to spend time outside and inside? 
“Yes!” - all/most 
Do we agree ot the idea that we need some light- flashlights, lanterns…?
“Yes!”- all 
And we have questions about shadows at night. We would want to experiment with some shadows; is that true? 
“Yeah, and we need you if we are going to come to school at night, we need you to get the key.” - Jack 
​

---

Capturing St. John's Portrait - Our Work Continues

We were back at work on the St. John's portrait to continue toward making the gift for the birthday celebration on March 4th. CC, Audrey, and Jack captivated audiences as they expressed their attention to detail in their drawings of the school's facade. We look forward to reflecting tomorrow on the drawings we have so far and next steps!